Sirius, Dogon, Fish-People pt 2 of 2

[Eric Alan Weinstein]

     Except for their Jupiter moon count, all of the Dogon's afore-mentioned
claims
     are absolutely correct ­ but none can be verified by scientific means
without the
     assistance of complex instruments and/or calculations. And even their
Jupiter
     moon count is not entirely erroneous, for although this enormous planet
     possesses more than a dozen moons in total, only four are of
significant size. 

     Yet although the Dogon's amazing astronomical prowess has attracted a
degree
     of attention from some astronomers, it has certainly not generated the
sizeable
     extent of scientific interest that one might have expected ­ but there
is good
     reason for this. When Griaule and Dieterlen asked the Dogon how they had
     acquired their knowledge concerning Sirius, they received a totally
unexpected
     and quite astonishing answer. According to the Dogon, their ancestors
had been
     visited long ago by a very strange race of alien beings from a planet
called nyan
     tolo or emme-girin that orbits emme ya. Referring to these beings as the
     Nommo, and stating that they were amphibious in lifestyle and extremely
     educated, the Dogon depict them in pictures as being akin to mer-folk,
     combining the scaly lower body and tail of a fish with a vaguely
humanoid chest
     and head. The Dogon claim that they arrived in a fiery ark, generating
a mighty
     whirlwind of swirling dust and emitting a thunderous noise as it landed
on the
     ground. They also tell of a stationary star-like object that remained
in the sky
     when the ark descended. Could the ark have been a form of shuttlecraft, and
     the 'star' the mother spacecraft? 

     It is at this point that most astronomers have chosen to avert their
eyes from the
     Dogon enigma, and look elsewhere for stellar secrets and mysteries ­
but it is
     also at this point that in 1967 one very notable researcher became so
intrigued
     that he spent the following eight years investigating the entire subject in
     exhaustive detail. A graduate in Oriental Studies and Sanskrit from the
     University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, as well as a Fellow of the
Royal
     Astronomical Society, his name is Robert Temple, and in 1976 his remarkable
     findings about the Dogon were published in a truly fascinating book
entitled The
     Sirius Mystery. 

                     In his book, Temple not only documented the
                     extensive Dogon researches undertaken by Griaule
                     and Dieterlen, but also included his own
                     comprehensive analyses of this work and of the
                     origins of the Dogon themselves. In so doing, he
                     presented some persuasive evidence for believing
                     that even if the source of the Dogon's in-depth
                     knowledge of the Sirius system is indeed of
     extraterrestrial origin, the encounter with the Nommos did not feature the
     modern Dogon but took place far earlier in time, and far beyond Mali. 

     During his researches, Temple learnt that "...the ancient Egyptians had
the same
     Sirius tradition which we have encountered from the Dogon tribe in
Mali." But
     that is not all: 

     "We know that the Dogon are cultural, and probably also physical,
     descendants of Lemnian Greeks who claimed descent 'from the
     Argonauts', went to Libya, migrated westwards as Garamantians (who
     were described by Herodotus), were driven south, and after many, many
     centuries reached the River Niger in Mali and intermarried with local
     Negroes. 

     "The Dogon preserve as their most sacred mystery tradition one which
     was brought from pre-dynastic Egypt by 'Danaos' [king of Argos] to the
     Greeks who took it to Libya and thence eventually to Mali, and which
     concerns 'the Sirius mystery'. We have thus traced back to pre-dynastic
     Egypt well before 3000 BC the extraordinary knowledge of the system
     of the stars Sirius A [i.e. Sirius, the Dog Star], Sirius B, and possible
     'Sirius C' possessed by the Dogon." 

 


 Babylonian Fish-people 


     Temple's studies emphasised the morphological parallels between the Dogon's
     description of the Nommo as highly advanced amphibious beings resembling
     mer-folk and the aquatic deities that frequently acted as civilising
teachers and
     instructors to early humanity and even to other deities in ancient
Mediterranean
     and Middle Eastern mythology. If this geographical area is where the Dogon
     originated, then it is logical to assume that the Nommo are likewise
'descended'
     from stories of this area's aquatic deities ­ which were seemingly
abundant,
     judging from the number of examples chronicled within its extensive
corpus of
     legends. 

     Chronologically, the earliest of these amphibious entities would appear
to be the
     Babylonian fish-people. They were known to the Babylonians as the Annedoti,
     which translates as 'repulsive', but notwithstanding their unappealing
appearance
     they were sufficiently influential for the Babylonians to accept their
teachings and
     acquire from them the fundamental tenets of civilisation. The most august
     member of the Annedoti was Oannes, portrayed in ancient Babylonian
     depictions as a curious, complex hybrid of human and fish, with a bearded
     man's head beneath the head of a fish, and the body of a fish borne
upon the
     back of a man's body. According to Babylonian legends, this aquatic deity
     would come on land during the day to teach the people, and would dive
back at
     night into the Persian Gulf, where he lived in an underwater palace
called the
     Apsu. Was Oannes the original Nommo? 

     Equivalent to Oannes in the religion of the Philistines at Philistia
(in what is now
     Israel) was a human-bodied, fish-tailed deity called Dagon. Further to
the west,
     Pharos in northern Egypt was said to be the home of 'the Old Man of the
Sea' ­
     a shape-shifting amphibious deity known as Proteus, son of Oceanus and
     renowned among the ancient Greeks as an oracle. Significantly, their
traditional
     legends specifically claimed that he often sheltered in a cave to avoid
the heat of
     Sirius. 

     Inspirations enough, surely, for the 'evolution' of the Dogon's Nommos?
As we
     might expect, any scenario as radical as this is bound to attract a
fair share of
     criticism. The principal counter-theory to Temple's is one that was first
     popularised some years ago by science writer Ian Ridpath and eminent
     American astrophysicist Dr Carl Sagan. They considered it likely that the
     Dogon's source of astronomical knowledge was far more terrestrial than
     extraterrestrial in origin. 

     By the late 1920s, scientific details concerning the existence and
exceedingly
     dense nature of Sirius B had begun to enter popular-format literature
in the
     western world. Ridpath and Sagan thus suggested that western missionaries
     travelling to Mali during that same period had probably mentioned this
star to
     the Dogon, who incorporated the missionaries' knowledge of it into
their own
     lore, so that by the time they were visited in 1931 by Griaule and
Dieterlen, it
     had become a familiar component of their 'traditional' beliefs. 


 Cultural Contamination 


     On first sight, this may seem to be a very plausible solution.
Certainly, it would
     not be the first time that an ancient, isolated people had been culturally
     'contaminated' by visitors or emissaries from more advanced societies
     inadvertently (and sometimes purposefully) implanting modern
information and
     concepts into their minds. Consequently, many scientists today favour
this as the
     acceptable, or rather, alternative explanation of the Sirius mystery. 

            According to Temple, conversely, it is fatally flawed. In a Fate
            article dating back to October 1990, Temple revealed that in order
            to check this supposed solution, he had written to the Father
            Superior of the White Fathers Mission in Mali, specifically
enquiring
            when the first missionaries had been sent to the Dogon region. In
            reply, the Father Superior informed him that the earliest
missionaries
            had arrived there in 1949 ­ long after the French anthropologists
     had documented the Dogon's Sirius data. In addition, the 400-year-old Dogon
     statue noted earlier and also countless other traditional Dogon
artifacts depict
     not only Sirius and po (Sirius B) but also emme ya. This overt anomaly was
     made readily apparent to Western believers and sceptics alike several
years ago
     when Dr Dieterlen held the statue up to the cameras for all to see
during a BBC
     TV interview, in which she succinctly dismissed as "absurd" the
possibility that
     the Dogon had obtained their knowledge from missionaries. 

     Temple's theory that the Dogon did not obtain their Sirius knowledge from
     modern-day Western visitors will become eminently testable with future
     advances in astronomical technology. It will reveal whether or not emme ya
     does indeed exist ­ and, if it does, whether the Dogon people's
additional claims
     regarding it are correct. 


 


                                         





           






Eric Alan Weinstein
E.A.Weinstein at qmw.ac.uk